


A Different Sort of Hand

by clutzycricket



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Ghost Stories, Ghosts of the Red Keep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 05:32:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5035747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/clutzycricket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Northern Lords knew Lord Stark's pretty elder daughter was a bit peculiar. (They blamed her Whent blood.)</p><p>The Southern Lords did not.</p><p>This had its consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Sort of Hand

 

The elder daughter of Lord and Lady Stark was considered to be a perfect Southron lady by the Northern houses- she could sing and dance and recall all of her courtesies flawlessly.

There was one slight… peculiarity about Sansa, though, one that did not come from her Northern blood. Most like it was a quirk of her Tully mother- invaders had flowed like tides over the Riverlands, and Lady Stark’s mother had been a Whent of haunted, cursed Harrenhal.

So most assumed her ability to speak with spirits came from that, no matter what Lady Catelyn said, and as Lady Sansa did not flaunt her talent, it became a secret of the North, not spoken of below the Neck.

After all, Sansa told her mother, blue eyes wide, the dead were not hers to command. They were folk great and small, and oft somewhere she could not reach.

Septa Mordane was never quite blamed for taking to drink, some nights, trying to teach that girl an organized Faith from a book.

The ghosts of Winterfell were amused, apparently, by this slip of a girl who could speak with them, and Sansa occasionally was heard to speak advice from long dead Starks and their wives. Occasionally she was to be found with a book more suited to Robb in the glass gardens, asking questions to “Alys”, “Cregan”, or “Rickard”, one of her siblings coming over if they heard an interesting name.

Arya was listening to the stories of Alys Blackwood Stark when the girls heard that the King was coming to Winterfell.

Sansa looked as if her nameday had come early until she stopped, turning her head. “What is wrong?”

Arya, who had been curious about all the knights and the best friend her father had been so fond of, looked up. She and Sansa didn’t always get along, but then Theon said something about Sansa being mad, or a servant from a visiting lord looked at Sansa as if she was a monster, and Arya forgot being angry at Sansa.

Jon had once pointed out that Arya was good at making friends. Sansa worked at making people forget how very strange she was.

“Why is the court all coming up to Winterfell?” Sansa asked- or repeated the question. It was hard to tell sometimes. “The last time that happened was in the time of the Good Queen Alysanne, and Lady Alys thinks that was to show off the dragons to the North. Remember, King Torrhen bent the knee below the Neck,” she recited.

“But the King doesn’t have dragons,” Arya pointed out. Sansa gave her sister a look.

“No, he has armies,” Sansa said, something slightly strange in her voice, sounding like Mother when she was tired or upset.

~

Jon was behind Sansa and Arya, glaring daggers at Theon and waiting for Lady Stark to say something. Arya would want him, and Sansa would need the support. Robb was at his sister’s elbow, and Arya had her chin jutting up, none of them sure if the King knew about Sansa.

The King’s party came up, and none of them were expecting the fat, drunken man who was nothing like the wild warrior of the tales, or the cold queen made of precious materials, and her three children cast in her image.

“Take me to her,” was the King’s demand, and Sansa serenely did not say that Lyanna Stark was not in the crypts of Winterfell. She had, perhaps, seen a shadow of a young woman who was possibly her aunt watching Arya play with their brothers and half-brother, but that was all.

The Queen looked furious, and Mother led her to her quarters, the princes and princess following.

And then her betrothal to the handsome crown prince was announced, and every ghost in Winterfell howled. None of the men or women wearing red and gold looked as if they had a good night’s sleep the next morning, and Sansa wondered how long it would be before the rumors started.

She sighed and went to find Grandmother, who she could usually find in the heart of the godswood.

“He is a cruel boy,” Grandmother Lyarra said, crossing her arms. “And the Queen did nothing but slight our home since she arrived.”

“She was slighted when she arrived,” Lorra Royce said, the motherly ghost swirling her old-fashioned skirts on the stone she sat on. “Myria and I never went a day without trading barbs for years- she was a Northern girl for all she followed the Seven as I did, and a Royce from the Vale was only good for a second son of the Starks.”

“So what do I do?” Sansa asked. “Septa Mordane said I mustn’t question Father’s will, and with this I would be Queen, but if they learn what I could do…”

“Ah, a bit of questioning is good in a growing girl,” Grandmother said. “Keep it all in the open, though. As for the other…” She frowned. “I do not like to think of the ghosts that might lurk in the Red Keep.”

“The Mad King?” Sansa said, fidgeting with a curl. Joffrey was handsome, and the idea of being Queen was interesting, but she was afraid.

“Possibly, possibly,” Grandmother said. “Try and speak to your father privately.”

~

Father explained that the King had demanded it, and he had no good reason to turn it down- Sansa had quietly mentioned that while Court was everything she wanted, the ghosts there frightened her.

Father turned dead white at that. “Gods… Child, I cannot undo this.”

So even though Sansa had begged the ghosts for news of how Bran had fallen, who never fell since he learned to run, she left Winterfell and its ghosts for the unknown.

She learned to keep her eyes meekly down, focused on the living, and things were wonderful, like they were in the songs, like they perhaps were for young ladies who did not have such flaws in their blood.

It served her well when she saw Father… when Ice… when Princess Viserra stroked her hair and told her to be brave, that they would protect her. She wept, a woman with dark curls and a sad smile telling her stories of her brothers, as different as night and day.

She pulled herself together, trying not to laugh at Viserra’s jests, scarred Lady Baela’s rages and battle comments, kept Princess Elia’s advice close to her heart, and listened to her Uncle Brandon’s tales of her father, Aunt Lyanna, and Uncle Benjen.

Mild as milk, not a wolf at all, just a poor pretty doll for the King to take his rages out on, the Court said.

“Good”, Queen Alicent said, wryly, “it is always better to be underestimated.”

“Aye,” a Lady Darklyn said, arching a brow. “That’s how you managed it, darling.”

“Survive,” Alys Harroway brushed her cheek. “Just survive.”

The ghosts could not get rid of Joffrey, but she knew the Red Keep better than any living soul, even Lord Varys. She could slip about as quietly as a shadow, reaching the kitchen from her room without seeing a red-and-gold guard.

“Don’t trust the drunken fool,” Mariah Martell told her one day, as she tried to let down the hems of her dresses yet again. “Some of the servants from the Sack saw him taking gold.”

Sansa pricked her finger with her needle, watching the blood bloom on the cloth. “Of course. Is there anyone safe in this Court?”

“I am not certain about safe,” Elia said, materializing, “but my brother was invited to the monster’s wedding to the Tyrell chit. Well, Doran was, but I have no doubt Oberyn will be the one to attend.”

The other two tilted to their heads.

“Doran does appreciate Oberyn’s sense of theater,” Elia sighed. “Or at least he did. It makes for a useful threat, and from what I can tell, it hasn’t been used lately. If Oberyn is here, and we can keep you safe until then… Oh, what my brother could do with you.”

Sansa wasn’t sure what to think of that.

~

Sansa Stark can sneak about the Red Keep with ease.

Sansa Stark can speak with poisoners long dead.

This meant when they learn about the plans to marry her off, to make her a Lannister, to treat her as if she was the same as the infant Lady Haysford, she knew what to take- not from the Grand Maester’s supplies, of course, but from other places, under careful watch. And she slipped it into the right pitchers, where it will not kill anyone.

It just made them ill. Very ill, in some cases. Lord Tyrion drank quite a bit. There was no wedding, for he spent two whole weeks unable to rise from bed.

One of the ghosts rewards her by showing her a secret library that no one discovered, untouched by the Sack. She steals a tome here and there, reading when no one is looking for her.

~

Princess Elia is right, and it is Prince Oberyn who arrives in a state for the wedding. Sansa waits before creeping to the quarters assigned to the Dornish lords, Elia’s ghost traipsing behind. She smiles at the surprise on their faces.

“Prince, my lady,” she said, sweeping a curtsy. “I am Winterfell’s daughter, and I have a tale to tell you.”

Mother would be furious. Uncle Brandon was commenting on the expressions on their faces, keeping her courage up. His words, after all, were not ruined by the mess of bruises around his throat.

“How fascinating,” Prince Oberyn said, staring at her curiously.

“You realize you have a bruise on your throat?” his paramour said gently.

“An accident,” Sansa said, touching it. “They meant to hit my ribs.” The Kingsguard’d still been ill and shaky on his feet.

Prince Oberyn hissed, something dark in his eyes.

“I am going to enjoy this,” Elia said, curling up next to her brother, who twitched slightly.

“My oldest daughter is your age,” the woman- Ellaria Sand, that was her name- said, something terribly sad in her eyes.

“The ghosts have been taking care of me, as they can,” Sansa said, truthfully. “I think the Queen Regent has not slept in a week from their mischief.”

“Oh, we can improve on that,” Prince Oberyn said.

~

The Wedding of King Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell was a disaster from start to finish. Sansa had been seated as a bridge between friendly Lord Garlan and his merry wife and Prince Oberyn and Ellaria, and spent most of her evening focusing on that, rather than the displays before her.

Even the display of her mother and brother’s deaths. There were twins talking in her ears, so she could barely hear, but she kept up a lively stream of chatter with her neighbors.

There had been accidents for weeks- things going missing, flying in plain sight, voices, cries, anything the ghosts of the Red Keep could do. And it showed- Joffrey was drinking heavily, looking ill and exhausted, and Margaery was looking wan beneath her mask of gaiety. Lord Tywin was ill, again, and Queen Cersei had apparently found her dresses torn to shreds.

Then Joffrey began to choke.

“I thought I could do it,” Alys Harroway whispered. “It is better than poison.”

From Prince Oberyn’s look, this was only the beginning.

I don’t command them, Sansa thought, bleakly. I have so little control, understanding… just a foolish girl playing with fire.

Margaery would not suffer those cruelties, though, she told herself, as if it was enough. 


End file.
